General Mills Anti 2nd Amendment

General Mills attempted to anonymously fund a "gun summit" for Minneapolis. Minnesota open records laws make that difficult, and it was documented in this news article. To be certain, I will no longer be a General Mills brand customer.

I just sent in a similar e-mail. I told them we wont buy any more GM cereal until they make a similar $10K donation to the NRA, the NJ 2nd Amendment Society, or other organization that supports gun rights for law abiding citizens.

Shareholders may 'own' GM, but they don't have any practical influence upon the day-to-day operational decisions. You can write to the institutional shareholders if you want, but it won't alter the investment approach of the investor nor alter the behavior of the company itself.

Unfortunately, there are probably not enough people who know about their position and will do something about it to make any difference. Still, most companies don't like to alienate any customers, especially in something that is not their core business area.

As a board member reportedly said when Gillette sponsored an anti-gun TV porgram, "What in hell does banning guns have to do with selling razor blades?" It is a good thought for those companies who are inclined to butt into politics and take some "moral" stand.

what would happen to a company on the next shareholders meeting when the sales go down ?

shareholders do have influence over what happens inside company
the one with most shares decides who will run it

Click to expand...

Not much would happen unless the decline is significant. Many companies regularly experience fluctuations in sales, income, and profit without the changing of corporate managment. As one of the world's largest food companies, it will be hard to avoid their products. Here is a list of General Mills brands.

They are still basically an old family run business in Mpls. Weird combination of corporate cowards and timid liberalism, but economically conservative (DFL). They have some pretty strange ideas (Yogurt in a tube/bag) and are easily swayed by public opinion.
Anyone in the Mpls area can start a public campaign (signs, letter to the editor, etc) and it would probably have an effect.

As long as they don't make vodka, beef jerky or pizza rolls I can safely avoid them.

Here's what I wrote and my response from General Mills.

Dear Valued Consumer:

Thank you for contacting General Mills. Your comments are important to our business.

Please be assured that we will share them with the appropriate individuals.

Sincerely,

Norma Stone

Consumer Services

>Original Message From:
>
>Originated by Consumer: I have just learned that General Mills has donated money to fund a "gun summit" for Minneapolis which will be a further attack on American's Rights. I am deeply disappointed with General Mill's anti-American stance. Should further donations be given to erode the Constitution of the United States myself, family and friends will go out of our way to never purchase your products again. Our Second Amendment Rights are very important to the 80 million+ gun owners in America.

what would happen to a company on the next shareholders meeting when the sales go down ?

shareholders do have influence over what happens inside company
the one with most shares decides who will run it

Click to expand...

The investors with the most shares get to influence the corporate BoD staffing, but that's dang near the extent of it. The BoD, in turn, will decide the operational executive staff hiring/firing while the operational executuve staffing currently in place get to decide the day-to-day kind of stuff. The process of using investors to alter corporate behavior takes ages, because it requires that you link operational decisions to long term drops in share value.

It's far more effective to convince the current operational executive staff that they're fixing to garner bad juju upon their careers via bad press than to wait for some minor blip in the corporate top line (gross sales) to drive investor notice...

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